Monday, June 24, 2013

Returning my tomes
on medieval medicine to the library, clearing my computer of the multiple
drafts of papers and paragraphs cluttering Word document folders, and having
taken my last trip to the Quaker and Special Collections at Haverford College,
I felt a deep sense of relief. My spring semester’s final research papers were
done, and my bookshelves could once again house novels, not just dense
historical studies.

There is a poetic
quality to the fact that now finished with my scholarly research as a freshman,
I begin working on the other side — with those who make such research possible.
With the support of Haverford College’s John B. Hurford Center for the Arts and
Humanities, I am interning throughout the summer with the Print Departmentat the Library Company of Philadelphia. My
work involves making primary source materials available to visiting scholars
and interested members of the public, a facet of research I had not previously
spent much time considering.

Interior of Christ Church.

LCP recently
acquired the Raymond Holstein Stereograph Collection of 2,000 “stereos.” (In
case, like me, you were previously unaware that a stereo was something other
than a music amplification system, a stereograph is a double-sided photograph.
A photographer creates two images of the same object/scene, taking each one at
a slightly different angle, and then mounts them next to one another on a mat.
When viewed in a stereoscope, a binocular-like contraption, the photographs “meld”
together as one three-dimensional image).

Chamounix, Fairmount Park.

The Holstein Collection predominantly
contains 19th- and early 20th-century images of Philadelphia, including views
of churches, hospitals, Fairmount Park, the Schuylkill River, and the
Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Through my work with the collection, I am
gaining new insight into the history of the City of Brotherly Love, my
home-metropolis for the next three years of college. On the day-to-day level, I
am helping to make the photographs accessible to visitors and, eventually,
online researchers.

Mrs. Maxwell taxidermy display at the Centennial Exhibition, 1876.

As it stands
now, the collection is not fully processed and I am at the stage of arranging
and describing it. Under the supervision of the Print Department, particularly
Associate Curator Erika Piola (a Haverford alumna), I am alphabetizing the
stereographs by title, providing call numbers, and housing them (an archival
mat inscribed with ID information and an acid-free sleeve to protect it from
the hands that will handle it). This occasionally involves a bit of sleuthing,
especially when the image has no title, is missing a date, or seems to have a
twin image under another title. I am also digitizing some of the collection, so
it can be viewed online. To take a look at some of my work, you can check out
the Library Company’s Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library-company-of-philadelphia/.
More will be coming soon, so check back! You might just discover Philly,
wandering through time and space from your desk, as did stereograph viewers
more than one hundred years ago.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Philadelphia was home to many early chemical and paint
companies. The nineteenth century found these two industries to be integrally
related by virtue of the fact that alcohol was a prime ingredient in both. One
paint company, the John Lucas Works, prepared a green paint “heavier in body, and
at the same time, when used by workmen, not detrimental to their health.” There
was obviously no truth in advertising laws at that time, and these same workmen
were at constant risk. The effect of lead poisoning was primarily due to
absorption of the lead base by the painter and secondarily by anyone who lived
within the confines of the painted house. Children chewing upon window sills
laced with lead paint were especially vulnerable. Although not recognized at
that time, lead, a potent neurotoxin, without proper precautions and with
chronic exposure, was potentially lethal. However, this was the Victorian era,
and that was the state of the art!

Although nothing of an historical nature has been written
concerning Robert Baker, John Moore and Benjamin V. Mein, much can be gleaned
from their illustrated advertisements. Their original building, located at 621
Market Street (rear entrance at 612 Commerce Street), was a rather dilapidated
affair. The company touted itself as being a wholesale druggist and sole proprietor
of the First National White Lead and Color Works. It can be seen below on an
1873 philatelic cover from my personal collection.

First National White Lead and Color Works philatelic cover, 1873. Collection of Dr. Gus Spector.

As a volunteer at the Library Company I was given the very pleasant task of providing an electronic transcription of a large number of medically-oriented billheads from the William H. Helfand Graphic Popular Medicine Stationery Collection, donated by Mr. Helfand, a
former Library Company of Philadelphia Board President and Trustee Emeritus. As a physician, I found this challenging, attempting to decipher the nineteenth-century handwriting and unraveling the names of proprietary drugs unfamiliar in today's medical lexicon. As a collector of illustrated Philadelphia paper memorabilia, I found the collection most fascinating.

Within the Library Company’s collection
was an illustrated billhead dated June 1887 showing the façade of the Barker,
Moore and Mein Company, relocated to 609 Market Street. The new Market Street
building was a much more imposing six story Italianate edifice. The busy street
scene in front of the building suggested a most prosperous business.

Barker, Moore and Mein were masters of merchandising. An
1877 billhead from the Helfand Collection proclaimed that, not only were they
purveyors of lead paint, but manufactured numerous other semi-related products
such as Barker’s Vegetable Horse, Cattle and Poultry Powder; Barker’s Nerve and
Bone Liniment; and Barker’s Brazilian Shoe Dressing. Since the Pure Food and
Drug Act of 1906 had not yet been conceived, it was anyone’s guess as to the
actual composition of these products. The handwritten invoice seen here listed the
sale of such sundry products as cologne, castor oil, Wright’s Liver Pills, and
paregoric.

As part of their advertising campaign, Barker published a
“Komic Almanac” that could be personalized for other companies with “your name
and business printed on the cover.” The 1893
philatelic cover from my collection seen below promised “a book containing
nearly 150 pictures, side splitters and button bursters”. Unfortunately, as was
common at the time, many of the cartoons contained within depicted extreme
racial slurs.

It is indeed interesting to view the drug industry as
stemming from a paint factory lineage. The advent of chemical engineering and
the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 gave rise to the disappearance of the
mystique of Victorian homeopathy as the mainstay of pharmaceutical treatment.
When the scientific technology became available, the only extra added essential
ingredient was human ingenuity.

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The Library Company of Philadelphia

The Library Company of Philadelphia is an independent research library specializing in American history and culture from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Open to the public free of charge, the Library Company houses an extensive collection of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, prints, photographs, and works of art. Founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, the Library Company is America's oldest cultural institution and served as the Library of Congress from the Revolutionary War to 1800. The Library Company was the largest public library in America until the Civil War.

The mission of the Library Company is to preserve, interpret, make available, and augment the valuable materials in our care. We serve a diverse constituency throughout Philadelphia and internationally, offering comprehensive reader services, an internationally renowned fellowship program, online catalogs, and regular exhibitions and public programs.